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Saturday, May 4, 1912: They put me at cleaning the pantry. I’m not fond of house cleaning, and therefore did not like my work. Sewed some this afternoon. I intend to do a lot more often after school is out.

Source: National Food Magazine (May, 1912)

In

House Cleaning Time

When

Old

Dutch

Comes in

Dirt Goes

Out—

Try it on

Something

Hard to

Clean.

Many uses and full

directions on

large sifter can 10¢

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

The pantry probably needed to be cleaned in anticipation of the upcoming canning season. The shelves likely were dusty and filled with disorganized mixture of empty canning jars, pots, and pans.

I bought a music cd from the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska a couple years ago entitled, “Canned Goods” by Ann Zimmerman. Priceless. Don’t know if you can get her cds on line, but I believe you would like to hear Canned Goods.

Hello

I look forward to sharing my grandmother's diary with relatives and friends. Helena Muffly (Swartz) kept a diary from 1911-1914. She was 15 years old when she began this diary. I plan to post these entries one day at a time—exactly 100 years after she wrote them. I hope you enjoy this glimpse back to a slower paced time.

The header is a picture of the farm where my grandmother lived when she wrote this diary. It is located in Northumberland County in central Pennsyvlania about a mile outside of McEwenvsille. My father said that the buildings look similar to what they looked like when he was a child.